Analysis: For Obama, a major policy victory will revive political war over health

The Supreme Court has thrust health-care reform into the center of the 2012 campaign debate, and Republicans are vowing to turn a legal defeat into an electoral victory.

The 5-4 decision, with Republican Chief Justice John Roberts joining forces with four Democrats, handed Democrats an unexpected win and gave Republican loyalists even more motivation to turn out at the polls in November.

“The Supreme Court made clear today that the American people will be the ultimate judge of ObamaCare,” said Texas Sen. John Cornyn, chairman of the Senate Republicans’ campaign committee. “While I am disappointed in the outcome, there will be plenty of time to debate the Court’s decision; now we must focus on electing Republicans in November who will end ObamaCare and put Americans back to work.”

Republicans, who are demanding a complete repeal of the health-care law officially known as the Affordable Care Act, can no longer count on the high court’s GOP majority to nullify the landmark law passed by congressional Democrats in 2010. Instead, their last hope is a victory by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and GOP takeover of the U.S. Senate.

The Supreme Court decision gives opponents of the law “even more incentive to work hard for Romney,” said John J. Pitney Jr., a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College in California.

Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said he expects conservatives to mobilize in November to reverse direction on health care.

“If conservatives are to realize their hopes of repealing the Affordable Care Act, the electoral process is their only remaining recourse,” said Galston, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton. “Once the dust settles, expect them to mobilize and work even harder for unified government under Republican control. And expect Mitt Romney to wave the bloody shirt all the more vigorously.”

“What the Supreme Court did not do on its last day in session, I will do in my first day in office,” Romney said, standing in front of the U.S. Capitol. “I will act to repeal Obamacare.”

The Supreme Court justices for the 2011-2012 term. (AP photo)

House Speaker John Boehner — who for weeks had been predicting that the court would strike down the heart of the law and Congress would repeal the rest — today focused on the political challenge ahead.

“Today’s ruling underscores the urgency of repealing this harmful law in its entirety,” he said.

Conservative legal scholars noted that the court’s finding that the law was constitutional under Congress’ taxation powers will come back to haunt Obama and the Democrats.

“The Obama administration won a battle today, but it lost a war that its lawyers had been waging against bedrock principles of limited government,” said Timothy Sandefur, principal attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative organization based in Sacramento, Calif.

Obama acknowledged that the debate over the law has been “divisive” and noted, “It should be pretty clear by now that I didn’t do this because it would be good politics.”

“Whatever the politics,” he said, “today’s decision was a victory for people all over this country.”

The high court decision surprised not only Republicans but a wide swath of Americans, as well. An Economist/YouGov poll recently found that only 10 percent of Americans — and just 15 percent of Democrats — expected the law to survive its Supreme scrutiny.

The decision means the historic overhaul will continue to go into effect over the next several years, affecting the way that countless Americans receive and pay for their personal medical care.

Despite the ruling, which will extend health care to an estimated 30 million uninsured Americans, the population remains deeply divided on the merits of the law itself.

An ABC News poll released yesterday showed that 36 percent of Americans favor the Obama health care law, while 39 percent prefer the health system the nation had before adopting the Affordable Care Act.

The challenge for Republicans will be to convince independent voters that the Democratic health-care overhaul is bad for them while ramping up the enthusiasm of the 82 percent of GOP voters who view ObamaCare unfavorably.

Still, most political analysts expect the economy to remain the dominant issue in November, even if health care and immigration return to the front burner. The Supreme Court’s action in June “might change the narrative now,” says Rutgers University polling specialist Cliff Zukin, “but it won’t change the ultimate narrative.”